Our campaign organised a protest outside Parliament with TV Vet Marc Abraham calling for a ban on the sale of puppies in pet shops and other third-party dealers in support of PupAid and C.A.R.I.A.D, who were giving oral evidence to the committee. The protest was attended by Labour MP Rob Flello, Conservative MP David Amess, SNP MP Paul Monaghan, Labour MP Rosie Cooper, Linda Goodman (CARIAD), Leigh-Catherine Salway (K-9 Angels), and Jodie Marsh (Bodybuilder and Glamour Model).

Due to the work of national campaign groups Pup Aid and CARIAD and support from smaller groups such as ourselves, the committee published a report recommending a ban on the sale of puppies in pet shops and by other third party dealers. Boycott Dogs4Us’ evidence was very briefly quoted as part of the report.

Aran Mathai from Boycott Dogs4Us spoke on BBC 2 about why the sale of puppies in pet shops needs to be banned.

Following the protest we went on to secure local politician’s support for our campaign. We were overwhelmed by messages of support from both Councillors and MPs. You can see the messages on our Celebrity and Political Support page.

Working with our local political contacts we worked behind and in front of the scenes pushing the Councils to take action regarding Dogs4Us, including holding a protest outside each store which highlighted an investigation by the BBC which included shocking undercover footage shot inside Dogs4Us puppy farm suppliers.

The Boycott Dogs4Us Team then attended the UK’s largest anti-puppy farming event PupAid to spread the word about our campaign.

In Leeds we delivered a Deputation to Full Council calling for a ban on the sale of puppies in Leeds pet shops. A vote was held and the Council unanimously agreed to pass the issue to the relevant department.

We held a rally for Puppy Farm Awareness Day in Manchester City Centre. The rally was attended by actress Shobna Gulati (Anita in Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies and Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street) and speeches were given by or on behalf of numerous dog welfare/animal protection groups including Manchester Animal Action and the Linton Pet Shop Campaign.

In Salford (Manchester) following our lobbying efforts the Council began a consultation into license conditions for pet shops. We submitted a response to the consultation thanking the Council for beginning to address the issue and to point out shortcomings in their proposed changes. We also staged a protest in Salford town centre at the end of the consultation period.

We held a protest at Leeds Town Hall calling on the Council to end the sale of puppies in pet shops and by other third-party dealers in Leeds.

The next day we met with Leeds Council representatives securing commitments to investigate concerns raised by our campaign.

Finally we held two days of action at the Manchester and Leeds stores educating the public as to why puppies are not presents.

Sadly champion of puppy farm dogs Lucy The Rescue Cavalier passed away in the run up to this two days of action. Therefore our campaign decided to hold a minutes silence for Lucy at our Manchester event. Other campaigners including our friends at C.A.R.I.A.D galvanised thousands of people across the world to join the minutes silence remotely, spreading the message even further.

Boycott Dogs4Us would like to thank all the people and groups that have supported and helped the campaign throughout 2016. In 2017, we at Boycott Dogs4Us will be redoubling our efforts to support campaigns such as PupAid and C.A.R.I.A.D in their push for a ban on the sale of puppies in pet shops (and by other third-party dealers). We will also continue to push the Councils locally to take action against Dogs4Us.

With your help a better future is possible for the dogs!

To stay up to date about the campaign Like and Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Pete Wicks from the reality TV show The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) has backed the Boycott Dogs4Us’ petition calling on Salford and Leeds Council to use their full powers to regulate pet shops selling puppies.

Following a Tweet from campaign supporter Faye Harrison, Pete Wicks who goes by Pete The Pirate ( @P_Wicks01 ) on Twitter Retweeted a link to the petition.

Facebook posts on the Dogs4Us Manchester and the Dogs4Us Leeds page encourage parents who are not looking to purchase a puppy to bring their children to their store. They are also running the ad on local Leeds radio station, Radio Aire. The only possible commercial reason for such an enticement is to encourage impulse purchases of puppies.

‘Pester power’ leads parents to make spur of the moment decisions. Many puppies are bought for the summer holidays only to be put up for sale/re-homing once the school term starts.

Dogs continue to be put to sleep due to a lack of good homes. If you have space in your life for a dog, please visit a rescue centre. Adopt, don’t shop.

Like this:

After receiving a number of interesting communications from a number of individuals connected to Dogs4us and close to owner Ray McCadden we thought it was about time we publicly appealed for more whistle-blowers.

If you work for Dogs4us, or have done in the past, or know someone that does, we want to hear from you. We need information on the suppliers of the puppies, Dogs4us suppliers in general, staff members , management and more.

We will pay for good information. Why not earn some extra cash on the side? We protect your identity totally.

And to the rest of the Dogs4us staff, you cant trust anyone. Remember the staff member, the ‘friend’, the family member, the customer that is claiming to hate us protesters could be one of those already assisting us. Remember there are people you know providing information right now, possibly on you.

Yesterday (22nd July) around 45 protesters (over the course of the day) protested Dogs4us in Manchester. This is over double the lower end of our pre-protest estimate of 20! Loud and direct the protest had tons of public support. The road was awash with noise as cars tooted to show their disgust at Dogs4us dirty business.

Refreshments were brought by locals that wanted to show support for the campaign and other passers-by joined the demo.

Members of the public and the few customers Dogs4us actually had, read the signs and leaflets about the Sky News and Channel 5 expose showing the cruel conditions dogs were kept in at a breeder that supplied Dogs4us. The megaphone was used to let people know that the Government recommend that you only buy a puppy if you can see the mother and that no so-called ‘responsible’ breeder would sell to a pet shop.

Sacha (the son of the Dogs4Us owner) who came out to photograph the protesters ran back inside Dogs4Us when activists went up to say ‘hi’ (assaulting an activist on his way). Then he cowardly sent his girlfriend out to take photos of the protesters while he hid inside!

Interest in the campaign continues to grow with over 60,000 views on the YouTube video showing the Sky News investigation of Dogs4us. Pledges to boycott continue to overwhelm the campaign and protest numbers continue to be strong. Dogs4us…. it is time to stop selling puppies!